Hellmouthed To Extinction
by Lots42
Summary: Reality in Sunnydale has decided to take a vacation. The Scoobies have to fix it before being taken down by the bad guys, old and new, living AND slayed. (Only half done wstory!)


Buffy stopped with a litle sneaker-squeek. Her eyes widened as she scanned the school hallway. A book wrapped fluttered near a half-closed locker. Other then that and her friends they were alone.  
  
"We've ...uh, oh. Hold up guys." Buffy swung her hands back. Willow and Xander bounced off of what felt like steel rods.  
  
"Can you feel it?" Buffy asked. Her eyes narrowed. She bent her knees slightly. Her hands curled.  
  
"Feel what?" said Xander.  
  
Willow's eyes were wider then seemed possible. "Oh, there it is. Oooh, oooh, ooh. Major badness. Icky gross stuff. Feels like how that dumpster behind the Meat Hut smells."   
  
Xander's eyes darted back and forth. "Damn. Even I can feel it. Felt like this when Amy's mom was pissed at me."  
  
"Bad magic." Buffy said.  
  
"Library?" said Willow.  
  
"Library."  
  
"Not a good idea." said Xander. He put one hand on Willow's shoulder. Her skin was clammy through her oversized black 'Thor' shirt.   
  
"Why not?" both girls asked.  
  
"Unfamilar territory. We run off now, we might end up in Cleaveland for all we know."  
  
"We know where the library is." said Buffy, rolling her eyes.  
  
"Sure. In Normal World. We don't even know where we are right now."  
  
"Oh, yeah. That's right. Lost in school. Not a good thing. Bad. Dammit, and I was looking forward to sixth period!"  
  
"Payphone." said Willow, pointing.  
  
There was a small, computerized payphone sitting next to a bank of lockers, opposite of the flapping book cover.   
  
"Was this here before?" said Buffy.  
  
"I don't think so." said Xander. "Too up to date for Sunnydale. Lookit all the shiny buttons and the screen and the text."  
  
"Um..." Willow put a hand out as Xander reached for the handset.   
  
"What is it, Will?"   
  
She pointed to a set of numbers on the upper right. "Since when is the emergencey number 549?"  
  
Buffy grabbed the handset. "I'll use the evil phone. You two step back."  
  
Buffy pulled out two quarters, just to be sure. She fed them into the slot. They made a wet, plopping noise.  
  
She banged away on one of the many collect numbers and soon got the library.  
  
Xander and Willow had taken up defensive positions on either side. Scanning both directions for anything spooky to come out and bite 'em. Xander had an oaken stake in his hands. It was one he ended up using after Buffy got in trouble behind the McDonalds on the interstate. It ended up 'his' and had been used to poke four more vampires and skewer a possesed leftover icky from the Bezoar that used to live under the school.  
  
"Giles!" Buffy said. A paused. "You feel it to? Creepy, huh? Heck, even Xander feels it. No, it's not the tacos he had last night...you see, that's the problem. We're not quite sure where the library is. Yes, I know but ... we're not quite sure where we are either. No markings on the doors and I'm not about to go opening them up at random. And uh...Giles?"  
  
"What's wrong?" said Xander.   
  
Buffy's eyes widened. Her hand flexed. The handset crumpled like paper. One half hit the floor. The other swung from the end of the cord, dripping bits of plastic like a rescued vamp victim drips blood.  
  
"Buffy?" said Willow. Buffy shook her head. Several large clumps of hair ended up pasted across her face. "I don't think that was Giles at the other end. Not giles at all. No way."  
  
"What happened? Possesion? Was he being mean?"  
  
"No...I think we got crossed over to one of those alternate dimensions Giles' books keep mentioning. A click, then...um, Giles' voice was saying horrible nasty things. Physically impossible things...even for me and my super-powers."  
  
"No lunch period for us today." Xander said softly.  
  
"Buffy!" Willow cried. Her wide eyes focused on something behind her. The Slayer whirled.  
  
The cord whipped about and wrapped itself around Buffy's neck.   
  
Xander elbowed Buffy aside and drove his stake through the phone's keypad.   
  
The cord dropped away. Blood streamed out of the broken handpiece, splattering and sizzling on the floor. Bright orange tendrils of light wrapped themselves around the stake. It flashed and was gone.  
  
"Fire in the hole!" screamed Buffy. In one smooth motion she pushed Willow to the left and dove to the right. One arm hooked Xander, dragging him along and to the floor.  
  
BAWHOOM!  
  
Quarters, dimes and nickels rained down.  
  
"Everyone okay?" said Buffy, springing to her feet.  
  
"Fine." Willow and Xander called at the same time.  
  
The closest lockers to the phone were a shattered mess and several quarters had embedded themselves in the far wall. A few red and black coins had burst through the ceiling.  
  
"How did you know?" said Willow as she picked a few dimes out of her hair.  
  
"Didn't really, but a blood spewing, stake eating phone wasn't something I wanted to be anywhere near."  
  
"Reach out and eat someone..." Xander muttered.  
  
---   
  
Oz dillgently flipped through the illustrated version of the Mad Monk Alazathatr's diaries. Researching Cath'andru Mazes was the important thing no. Running pell-mell out the library doors looking for Willow would feel good, but since 'outside' was currently a zombie infested graveyard in the middle of the night (while the skylight showed sun) that wasn't a good idea. Phones were out. Technically. Any number dialed from inside the library just got screams of terror on the other end. Screams and wet sounds.   
  
Screams that had almost caught up to him and Coredelia. They had literally ran into each other after third period, something that not should have happened, seeing as their third periods were on opposite sides of the buildings.  
  
Years of creepy had given them the same idea at once, and they had headed straight for the library.   
  
Learning will help Willow, he told himself as Cordy and Giles ventured into the stacks for more books. Hopefully they'll return. Learning will help Willow. Learning.   
  
Dark brown hair spouted on the back of his neck. It unfurled, grew and turned dark black. Cordy and Giles reappeared, loaded down with some of the more creepier volumes, and oddly enough, a couple Civil War painting books. The hairs lightened, shortened, then faded away.  
  
---  
  
"This stinks." said Jonathan. He pushed himself around another dusty corner. "How the hell did I get in the school basement? I always knew something was fucked up with this school." He crossed under an arch and came to a wide open area with a dirt floor. A few rusty, dusty supplies stood in the far corner. "This...is not good. Not good. I'm gone." Jonathan left swiftly. He would dream about a bald, grey-skinned man for several weeks afterwards.  
  
---   
  
Harmony took the outside staircase two steps at a time. She wanted to be careful. She wanted to avoid this staircase in the first place, ever since that whatever pushed her down. People told her it was an accident but she didn't believe them. Not one bit. Not even Cordelia, who got all weird after the whole thing. Harm hurried her pace and got to the bottom in a whirl of misplaced hair and rumpled Armani.  
  
"Harm," squealed her friend Persephone. "What's your damage?" Per's hair was, of course, straight and black, like always. And her makeup was completely in place. Harmony could feel her foundation cracking as she spoke.  
  
"I was in the band room supply closet because I heard someone moving around in there and I wanted to investigate like icky Snyder said and there must have been a mirror or something from the fun house because I saw myself but I had an gross nose like I broke it and I was wearing vampire teeth."  
  
"Grody." said Per, shaking her well-conditioned hair about. "I bet it was that weirdo Jonathan kid. He'd be just the kind of lameo to do something like that. You know, Harm, you really shouldn't be doing things like that. Running around this school alone gets you into all sorts of trouble. Remember that girl who went to the basement for a smoke and that gross guy beat her up?"   
  
"Well, whatever happened, whatever made me see that, even nerds can have good fashion sense. I was wearing this great blue sweater I saw down at the mall." Harmony swiftly gathered her rarely used school supplies together.  
  
"Really? What store? 'Flashes'? I love that store!"  
  
"Wanna go buy it after school?"  
  
"Sure, great!"  
  
---  
  
Cordy paused. Gile's gross medical supplies hadn't leaked out all over her new nails. But every silver cloud had it's Versace lining. She'd learned long ago Giles was always better stocked then the school nurse ever was. He even knew about makeup, to cover up bruises. (He had said that sometimes even Slayer's don't heal fast enough to attend class). And hanging with the Loser Squad did end up with a lot of the bruising and the scary and the violence and the broken nails. Plus, he wasn't creepy like the old nurse had been, with being homicidal and the new nurse was, with her thermometer thing.  
  
All the Scoobies went this way and that. They had this whole wound-care icky thing down to an art form. Which was all well and good with Cordy. Last week she'd been the only one around to get icky demon goo out of Buffy's hair. (That's why she had to have new nails. The goo'd eaten the Blazing Pink Polish right off).  
  
Willow and Xander had new shirts. A black, loose tee for Xander and a pink He-Man shirt with a high collor for Will. The clothes were courtesy of a clothes-supply box kept somewhere in the library just in case of gross demon slime. (Of course, Willow'd changed in Giles' office). And bandages all up and under them, courtesy of the box that had been in her hands moments ago and now as gone. Cordy had barely noticed it.  
  
Cordy had a spare outfit also, but it was kept in a dry cleaner's bag and hung up nice and folded deep in Giles' office. Away from the dusty spell supplies. Far away. Ginseng made her break out in hives.  
  
"And then?" asked Oz as he dumped Xander's shirt into a garbage bag which leaned up against one of the few shelves in the library that had actual school/library books on it.  
  
"Oh, just a Fiaral Demon trying to eat the school nurse." said Buffy.  
  
"Thermometers can't help with those."  
  
"Did you know they explode like a rotten watermelon if you snap their necks?" said Xander. He picked something wriggly out from behind his left ear and tossed it on his old shirt. "Not that I did that, of course. Buffy was all grr with the demon slaying."  
  
"And the nurse?" said Giles, looking up.   
  
"Doesn't explode."  
  
"Xander!"  
  
"We left her locked in the bathroom." said Buffy as she sat down at the main table. "She didn't see a thing. She was too busy running around and screaming."  
  
"Got Xander with the thermometer." said Buffy.  
  
"My belly button still hurts." Xander mused as he sat on one of the library's carpeted stairs.  
  
"Locked?" Giles adjusted his glasses and sat at the main table. "Oh my."   
  
"Probably the safest thing, considering. She has a cell phone. When it stops playing the 'Tales From The Darkside Theme', she'll call 911."  
  
Oz paused in brushing his hair. "Never thought I'd say this, but we could use Mr. Wesley."  
  
"He's finally accomplishing something good in his life." Giles said tersely. "He actually decided to go down to San Diego and pick up three copies of the diaries of Mrs. Stacy Keane, a well known sorcerer during the American Civil War. I do hope he doesn't manage to screw it up, Keane was a most remarkable sorcerer."  
  
"Wouldn't that be witch?" said Xander.  
  
"You have not read about Mrs. Stacy Keane. She was unique. You'll learn."  
  
"Yay." said Xander. "Magical homework."  
  
Buffy yawned, her arms streching upwards. Then she stopped. "Where did Willow go?"  
  
Oz stood. His chair fell over with a bang.  
  
"Just handed her a towel." he said. "She was here."  
  
Xander was already sprinting up the stairs. He made a quick and noisy pass through the stacks. Several bookshelves shook.  
  
"No Willowage. Nothing out the back entrance. Taped hair still there."  
  
"Taped hair?" said Buffy.   
  
"Read it in a book. Indicates if someone fudged with the door."  
  
"Please tell me these things." said Giles as he scanned the library.  
  
Cordy felt something under her left foot. A red towel.  
  
"Oz, is this the towel?" she said, pointing. Her lower lip shook just a bit.  
  
"Towel was blue."  
  
"Oz!" Cordy hissed. "This is blue! Covered in blood!"  
  
Cordy made a strangled sound and kicked the towel to the side. "I wasn't standing on this thing ten seconds ago!"   
  
Xander pulled her to the side. Giles crouched over the towel, not touching it.  
  
"Giles." said Buffy. "What in the hell is going on?"  
  
"I do not know."  
  
"I know you have a theory."  
  
"Yes." Giles produced a pencil and used it to lift the towel. Oz growled. "Thirty nine years ago, the entire Jennivese family of Gophil, South Dakota, was found locked and dead in the bank vault. Twenty four witnesses placed them in New York three hours before their discovery. It corresponded with the now-dead vampire Sebastin Hamburg's efforts to transport himself into secret Watcher libraries deep beneath London. He ended up in an abandoned monestary in Nepal, where he was tracked down and slain by the then current Slayer."  
  
"I'm going back out." said Buffy. "We have to find Willow."  
  
"Be careful." declared Giles. "Thirty minutes ago it wasn't the school out there, it was the Weatherby cemetary. Complete with zombies."  
  
"Zombies won't stop me from finding Willow."  
  
"I'm coming." said Oz. He emerged from the book cage with two shiny, new battle axes. He passed one to Buffy as they walked towards the doors.   
  
"Wait, I'm coming." said Xander.   
  
Giles laid a hand on his right shoulder. "I'm going to need you for research."  
  
Xander looked at Giles. "Please." said Giles.   
  
"Xander!" said Cordelia. "Shut up and crack a smelly book open." She had one in her hands and opened it. "It's time to be traumatized. Oh look, a decapitation. Yay."  
  
"Too late." he muttered. He gave one last look at Oz and Buffy. Then the doors shut. He sat back on the stairs and could only concentrate on the book because it had a chance of helping Willow.  
  
---  
  
Xander peered over the dewey decimal card system and through the small windows in the doors. There weren't any zombie graveyards there anymore, just the school cafeteria. Of course, the school cafeteria was clearly not supposed to be on the other side of the library doors. Larry, the big gay jock, passed by, a dull, stunned grin on his face. This was normal. The cocker-spaniel tale was not. Xander pushed himself away from the doors.   
  
"I am so hungry."  
  
"I have some scones in my office." said Giles appearing from somewhere in the stacks. The 1924 Watcher's Diaries were in his arms. Xander remembered those. The prof. really, really liked to talk about clouds.  
  
"Such is life on the Hellmouth." Xander shrugged. Food was food. Would have gone for the snack machine but chances are that was in Bolivia, being eaten by a Flitter demon. They like metal. "What kind of scones?"  
  
---  
  
"I got something!" said Cordy.   
  
The book bounced off Xander's lap and fell closed on the floor. Giles glared but said nothing as Xander picked it up.   
  
Xander was glad for the interuption. The bit he was reading, about the ugly Medusa clone eating babies in Chicago really didn't seem to be much of a help.  
  
Giles came closer. "What did you learn, Cordelia?"  
  
"France, 1801. June. A bunch of bald monk dudes in an ancient castle and ugly robes say that one of the new monk dudes went completely off his nut at about five in the morning. Probably woke up with bad no-hair. Claimed to half the night lost in the place. Sure, he was new but it wasn't that complicated. The map says it wasn't that big. Crazy monk-boy, who called JoJo or something said nothing was where it was supposed to be and there was lots of creepy evil icky stuff running around. A suit of armor almost took his head off and a naked guy with a spear tried to run him through. And oh yeah, the monk's dog vanished, never to be seen again. Until...it turned up twenty years later, healthy as the day it vanished. Aw, that's good. These stories always depress me. Wait, the JoJo commited suicide three weeks later by throwing himself off the highest tower in the place. He landed on a statue ... um, with a lance. That nobody was quite sure had been in that exact spot before. It took him three days to die and his screaming drove a nun insane. Dammit, Giles, aren't there ever any happy stories in your crappy books?"  
  
"I regret that the 'Demonic Tales Of Malefasence' did not make you want to run through the hall singing tales of joe. Cordelia, may I please see it?"   
  
Giles sat down and held his hands out.  
  
Xander helped move a stack of emails. Willow had printed out a bunch the other day. Most of them detailed how the Sears Tower lights flashed, in Morse Code, 'Let's stab people' for a half an hour straight. The electrician union had blamed it on drunken teenagers.  
  
Giles opened the book with care. "Ah, the Order of Saint Horation. Established in 1104 in the foothills of the Andes mountains. They do freelance spell work for the Watcher's Council. The Main ORder once helped bind Fitaxian, the Spider God. It had eaten the French ambassador to New Zealand that year, along with thirteen of his friends and a horse that could do math. I should have the number to the Oregon chapter somewhere."  
  
"Giles..." said Xander. "You told me to interupt if you start lecturing."  
  
"Right, right. Thank you."  
  
"PDA would be good." Xander muttered as he watched Giles consult a small, purple spiral bound notebook he had pulled from his jacket. It was filled with line after line of tight, ordered script.  
  
"PDAs will not be used in this library." said Giles, as he flipped to the back. "Seargeant James Plimpton of the Italian Police force owned an earlier model of the PDA. He specialized in the kinds of things we fight and was well known throught his country. One day, April 4th, he entered one hundred and seventy four phone numbers for various occult shops and libraries around the world. April 7th, he woke up sans nostrils and a debillitating urge to threaten young children with evisceration. He had to be locked up in an insane asylum in Greece for his own safety."   
  
Giles rose and walked behind the main counter. He produced a large greeen rotary dial phone from behind a pile of battered Geology textbooks.  
  
"Giles, the phones are bad, remember?." said Cordelia. "The last phone we tried to use yelled at us and told my hair was ugly and would be chopped off to decorate the lairs of vampires and Snarlf Demons.."  
  
"I blessed this one with a quick white light spell ten minutes ago while you were fixing your hair."  
  
"Can you blame me? A demonic voice told me it was going to be used as decoration in a demon lair. Eww.."  
  
"The importance of that cannot be denied." Giles said. He hooked up the phone to a jack set next to a framed picture of the Bastille.  
  
"Pretty impressive." said Cordelia. She stood and streched all four limbs at once. Xander kept his eyes turned.. "Although, you're the one who always keeps harping on Willow about using magic willy-nilly. White spells over the Hellmouth don't sound too right."   
  
"I'm a Watcher. I have trained for situations exactly this. It's what we're supposed to do. Willow is a teenager with barely any training. Now if you will excuse me."  
  
Cordelia looked at Xander as if to say 'He better know what he's doing'. Both of the teenagers remembered many a spell that went arwy, always with life-threatening consequences. Then again, in Sunnydale, pretty much anything could end up threatening your life.  
  
Giles slowly dialed. The phone beeped and booped. Then it bulged. Scaly legs pushed aside phone material like egg shells. The buttons swirled and formed a buttony-mouth. It roared, louder then something that size should be able to roar. Giles stepped back. In one smooth move, he produced a dagger from under the counter. Tape hung from it. Giles grimaced and impaled the phone beast straight through the 5.   
  
It growled again, gave off a red glow, then vanished. It took the dagger with.  
  
"See?!" cried Cordy. She had pulled a stake of her own from her purse. All the Scoobies carried them. "I told you your white spell would cause problems?"  
  
"Please, Cordelia." said Giles. "Now is not the time!" He had his notebook out and was busy writing out details.  
  
"Okay, not a good plan, the phone thing." said Xander. "Plan B?"  
  
"Yes, Plan B." said Giles, still scribbling away. "We can contact the Order with the payphone outside."  
  
"Are you mental?" cried Cordelia. "Look what happened with the last spell you did? Spells in Sunnydale don't go well even when things are normal!"  
  
"Cordy." said Xander. "There's no reason to believe the incidents are related."  
  
"Don't use words you just learned last week, Xander. Weird stuff in Sunnydale is always related. Even I know that."  
  
"Cordelia." said Giles, emerging from behind the desk. "I appreciate your caution. But the Order really does know a lot more about what we are experiencing now. They are our best chance of figuring out what is going on. I did use blessing spells on it and if something does happen, I will have you two right next to me in case something goes wrong."  
  
"You really consider me backup?" Cordelia asked. Her cheeks reddened.  
  
"Of course. You have proved invaluable in the fight against evil."  
  
"Time to roll out!" said Xander, eagerly. "I call mace!" He paused.  
  
"Giles, got any chalk?"   
  
"Yes, but permanent markers are better. That is, if you are thinking of trying to map the chaos outside?"  
  
"Sort of."  
  
"Good job, Xander. This is the kind of thinking I've tried to encourage from day one."  
  
Giles scribbled out a note for the others. He slid it in the pages of a book of Mid-West horror stories on the far end of the counter. If Buffy or any of the others came to an empty library, they'd know to flip through the pages for any messages.   
  
The well-armed tri0 left the library. A few moments passed before the book bulged, twisted, turned into a bunny rabbit and hopped off the counter. It was swiftly and messily eaten by what was once Giles' tea set.  
  
---   
  
The gymnaisum echoed with the growls of zombies. Oz and Buffy stood back to back, surrounded by the shambling dead. Slime coated their limbs. Oz sported a nasty bruise on right wrist.  
  
Pep school banners hung in tatters.   
  
There was a bright red steak of blood across the side entrance doors. It swept from the top left to the bottom right, where lay crumpled the form of Josh Burbank. He was known around school for always having a bit of candy to sell. Buffy had bought quite a few pieces from him, counting on the sugar to help her stay awake in class after a hard night of slaying. Never again. A spray of candy surrounded him, like spectators at a concert.  
  
"Our new team chant leaves something to be desired." muttered Buffy. "Uninspiring. Dull. Smelly."  
  
"Not liking the team itself." replied Oz. "They killed Josh. Josh had the candy Willow liked. Josh was nice."  
  
Oz tensed. Buffy prepared for whatever he was going to do. He pushed off her tensed bac and let fly with a sweeping right kick. Buffy was impressed, he must have picked it up from her training sessions.   
  
The kick decapitated the closest zombie, a former priest. Priest good coated everything for yards around.  
  
"I've been paying attention at your practicing." said Oz as confirmation.   
  
"Brains!" shouted the current closest zombie. His tattered and moldy letterman jacket indicated that the latest football team's casualty had turned flesh-eating instead of blood drinking. Zachary Bodicil, if Buffy had remembered correctly. Vanished after chasing a stray cat during a night game on the school grounds. (She had tried to warn them about those night games but all that happened was Zachary and Jeff made several suggestions, physically impossible for even a Slayer).   
  
"Brains!" echoed the other zombies, thirty by Buffy's count. Only one other was a person Buffy recognized. A sense of relief hit her, since it was just a nodding acquantice, a jerk at the Double Meat Palace who wouldn't give Xander extra mayo packets. She felt a bit of shame at feeling that, for he once was human. The jerk charged, along with the other zombies,and all her shame washed away as she cracked him hard one across the face. His right eyeball flew out as he stumbled backwards. Mayo-like substance spewed out. The bounced off a pair of Doc Martens and rolled through a pair of legs.  
  
Oz cracked open a moss-ridden chest with a powerful one-armed blow. The police officer groaned and collapsed.  
  
Then the monsters overwhelmed them.  
  
---  
  
Willow sat in the principal's office. Only it wasn't Snyder's office. Her hands tensed. Buffy-moves and a little bit of magic she really shouldn't even be considering stood ready as soon as the oogy attacked. One wasn't readily apparent but when there was magically changing principal offices, an oogy was sure to appear.  
  
Then the 'naughty' magic made her dizzy and feeling all scaly so she banished it with a blessing from Analise, a little known goddess of baby animals.  
  
The bald black man continued to stare at her.   
  
The smell of weapon polish reached her nose. Not good. Shiny metal blades not in Scoobies' hands was never good.  
  
"Look." she said. "I told you. I'm not sure how I got in here. I-I think I hit my head. Last thing I remember was...was you entering."  
  
"I don't think that's true."  
  
"W-what. Of course it is. Why wouldn't it be?"  
  
"Two words. Snoopy Dance."  
  
"Okay, spill with the knowledge already, Spock!"  
  
"Sorry, Willow. I'm afraid I can't do that."  
  
"And why not? You're so free with the code phrases and all."  
  
His arm twisted, faster then she would have thought a principal could move. A red dust slammed into her face, solid with power and magic.  
  
Willow sneezed, then fell backwards. A red, upholstered chair caught her.  
  
The black man was standing in front of her. He seemed to tilt back and forth.   
  
"Don't worry, Giles told me this stuff is fine. You're gonna get real sleepy now and then vanish. Hopefully in time before the parent teacher conferences start."  
  
"You're a bad, smelly man." Willow muttered. She waved her left hand. The pencil sharpener on the desk turned into a coffee mug.   
  
The man jumped to the right. "Jesus." he said. "I wasn't warned about this."  
  
"'At's what you get. Poopy-head."  
  
Willow's eyes shut and the whole world went loopy.  
  
"Don't trust the fire exstinguishers." was the last thing she heard for a long while.  
  
And then the next thing she heard, and saw, was Angelus.  
  
---   
  
"Brains!" roared the zombies. "Blurgh!" growled a few who had gone through teeth-punch out.  
  
A blonde female stumbled drunkenly on the far side of the gym. Buffy's axe hung from her back. Buffy noted this. Maybe that's where zombies had their processing power...  
  
An older man in a fast-food uniform managed to find the brainpower to tug on the climbing rope.   
  
"Nice throw." said Oz, glancing at the damaged ceiling hooks. "Where's the stake?"  
  
"Zombie's dripping ook on it." said Buffy from one rope over. "It had no sentimental value anyway. Let them drip. Stupid zombies. My jacket is never going to get clean"   
  
Buffy swung her right leg out and up. An air-conditioning grille crumpled like tin foil, then fell down and away. It sliced through the brainpain of the fast-food zombie. The dead man fell hard.  
  
"Come on." said Buffy. "Werewolves first."  
  
"Appreciate it." he said Buffy shoved him inside. "Will it hold?" His voice echoed like Devon's reverb board.  
  
"Of course. Me and Giles...Giles and I tested then out a couple months after I got here, in case we needed them as a way to escape from vampires."  
  
"Or zombies."  
  
"Well, we haven't done zombies yet. We did demon puppies."  
  
"Demon puppies?"  
  
"Before your time." Buffy slid in after him  
  
"Thankfully."  
  
"Never order the taco suprise." she said with a slight shudder.  
  
"Never have. Never will, now."  
  
The two shimmied through the small passageway  
  
Thirty seconds later the vent tore open with a ghastly screech.  
  
Buffy twisted in mid-air, knowing she could take the fall much better then Oz could.  
  
The impact still knocked the breath from her.  
  
Balls flew like snow flakes as something cracked and fell.  
  
Then Buffy was pulling Oz up and eyeing him for injuries. No apparent skin damage but his shirt was probably a loss  
  
"You okay?" she said.  
  
"Urgh."  
  
"Who's the mayor?" she asked as she flipped on the lights. A half-demolished rectangular room greeted them. Could they really have caused this much damage?  
  
"Mean."  
  
"Unfortunately."  
  
Buffy's eyes darted to the left.  
  
"Yay! Arrows!"  
  
"You sure? P.E. arrows?"  
  
"Willow hacked the school's accountantcy system. We made them order the good ones. Can dust a vamp from fifty yards."  
  
"That's my Will."  
  
Well stocked with arrows, the two left the supply room.  
  
A red kickball slowly followed, un-noticed. It had once been used to bean Xander, Oz and thirteen other students in a vicious dodge ball session. Now it had gained a life of it's own. Life went on.  
  
---  
  
Xander slammed the classroom door. Sweat dripped off his hair.   
  
His eyes darted back and forth. Then he stumbled down the hallway and found the others, standing next to the entrance to the inner courtyard. Nobody was there. For the moment.   
  
"Well, what got you so fired up?" said Cordelia.  
  
"Giles, remember when I asked about that new student who looked like me, that I saw while giving a year or so ago?"  
  
"Yes, I remember. Willow said she couldn't find anything in the school files. All recorded in my diaries. Very interesting."  
  
"Well, get ready for a new page because...um, that was me. I was him. I was both. In there I'm giving the report. Oy. My head hurts."  
  
Giles headed off.  
  
"This is most disturbing." said Giles as Cordy and Xander followed him down yet another hallway. "It will be difficult to get things done with reality coming apart at the seams."  
  
"Well, don't you have any worthwhile spells memorized?" asked Cordelia. "Ones that could keep reality from collapsing?"  
  
"Well, yes, but I don't want to fire off spells willy nilly in such a magically over-charged enviorment."  
  
The group turned a corner.   
  
A locker belong to Adam Smith, replacement swim team member, pushed open from the inside. Geraldine Mage, former Sunnydale newspaper reporter, now vampire, stumbled out. She smiled, her plan to hide in school and eat those kids who always hung around, was going well. Except it wasn't night time. Middle of the day.   
  
Her face screwed up in puzzlement. Then the sunroof above got to her and she dusted with a growl.  
  
---   
  
"Willow, what are you doing in the school pool?" asked Oz. "And what's with Mr. Giles' candles?"  
  
"Buffy, watch out! It's Angelus! He's back somehow!"   
  
A dark shape burst from the shadows. Oz grunted, then went skidding across the tile, a trail of blood streaming from his mouth. He splashed into the pool, then sunk.  
  
"Oz!" cried Willow. She started to flail towarss him.  
  
Buffy lept high and crashed down, both hands and knees on Angelus' back. The evil vampire smacked into the tile, breaking his nose and destroying four teeth. He growled and twisted. They both rolled into the shadows. Fist on flesh sounds echoed throughout the dark pool area. Cement crunched and wood snapped. A box of life vests skidded into the light.  
  
Willow chewed her lower lip as she pulled Oz to the surface. He coughed and spat blood. Alive. Always good, being alive. Not too busted up. Bruises, yes.  
  
Willow paddled. Oz wasn't all together yet and she had to keep him up.  
  
Then a hand grabbed her hair and jerked her backwards. Her neck slammed into the pool's edge. Everything went blurry.   
  
"Naughty naughty witch!" said Angelus. "That's my lunch."   
  
Oz fell to the bottom.  
  
Willow screamed and swung her right arm back. Purely out of luck her nails found his eye. Blood spurted. Angelus roared and fell back.  
  
"Damnation!" he roared. "Dru always said not to play with my food."  
  
Willow dove down and caught Oz's armpits. She heaved him. Everything was spinning and so painful. Her neck hurt so bad where it had caught the edge of the pool.  
  
"To hell with your candle spell!" cried Angelus. "I'm coming in! You're both going to be hor' dourves!"  
  
"Never play with your food." said a welcome voice from the shadows.  
  
Angelus managed a suprised expression as he was flung over Willow's head. He went the full width of the pool. Blood dropped from his torn eye. His face smashed into the opposite side of the pool and he sunk like a stone.  
  
"See how you like it!" Willow cried. Then she lost her grip and use of her legs.  
  
Something strong grabbed her shirt and hauled her up.  
  
"Come on, you two." said Buffy. "No swimming after lunch or you'll crack up."  
  
Oz came into view, moaning and looking at Willow.  
  
"Seriously, guys. Move it or lose it. Angelus isn't going to be pool toys for long."  
  
The group stumbled away.  
  
The water rippled. A coat slurped to the surface. A shredded shirt followed.  
  
A kickball, sporting four eyes itself, smacked right into. Angelus pinwheeled, cursed in several dead languanges, then fell back in. Magic crackled as it tore through his vampiric body.  
  
The ball rolled away. Something giggled.  
  
  
  
--   
  
Giles was trying to figure out if the computer lab door glass had exploded out in both directions. Cordy tapped him on the shoulder. "Wet goobers, three o'clock."  
  
Giles rose into a tae kwon do battle stance. But goobers meant, for some unknown reason, Buffy, Willow and Oz. Bruised but clearly alive. Not Goobers as in the race of beasts the Four Horsemen had as servants.  
  
There was much babbling over what had happened. Oz silently held an ice pack to his cheek. Willow babbled and hugged at the same time, though it didn't seem possible.  
  
Giles sighed. He reached into the mess of babbling teenagers and managed to herd them into the computer lab. The machines were untouched and unexploded. It still pained him to be here, as this was where Jenny used to teach.   
  
Jenny's old Dilbert desk calendar showed it to be two months ago. Sadly, not enough time to write a note to her...but maybe...no, that way lies madness.  
  
Giles glared until everyone quieted.  
  
A silent signal passed among the group and they took seats. Giles walked to the front of the classroom. He found a piece of chalk. He twirled it in his fingers for a moment before turning to the board.  
  
"Okay, this is what we know." he said. "It's two months from now, in this room."  
  
He quickly wrote out '2 mnths from today, in comp. lab. Time travel rampant, uncontrollable'.   
  
"Angel got the happy again. And is evil. Again." scowled Xander.  
  
'Angel is evil' went up in neat, percise handwriting. The chalk squeaked on the second e, making everyone cringe.  
  
"Past Angel." said Oz. "Not Angel of now."  
  
"Time travel makes my head hurt." said Buffy.  
  
"And my cheek." said Oz.  
  
Giles wrote 'Angelus of past, in school. Trapped in pool due to unstable spell'. Only Buffy noticed the slight trembling in his writing hand.   
  
"Unstable?" said Willow.  
  
"No offense is meant, but you are a rookie. I am shocked you were even able to perform it. I am also appalled as we both know it came from the Necrotorium, which is on the forbidden list. But we will talk about that later."  
  
Xander raised his hand. "Geography and time out of whack all over the place."  
  
'Terrain changing' wrote Giles. The chalk again managed to squeak.  
  
"Oh and some bald African-American guy in a suit." said Willow. "He gave me hints. Mysterious hints."  
  
Giles turned again. 'Bald black man. Ally?'. No squeaking.  
  
"Gyms full of zombies." Buffy said. "Real ones. They smell."  
  
"I believe we're getting into semantics now." said Giles as he wrote down 'Zombies in gym'. "We need to concentrate on the source of the disturbances, not the effects."  
  
"I say Hellmouth." Xander declared.  
  
"Well, yes, of course. What we need to figure out is what demonically powered entity is causing the disturbances."   
  
Cordy straightened up. "That creepy Ethan Rayne would like this. He's all into chaos and scariness and making people run amok and dress badly and have sex on the roof. I'm still traumatized. My mom has no business wearing what she did."   
  
Giles squeaked out on a new section. 'Suspects: Ethan Rayne'.  
  
"I don't know." said Buffy. "He's a jerk but he's usually more subtle then this. Maybe it's Spike. I dunno. I'm lost."  
  
Giles dutifully wrote out 'Spike'.   
  
"No, I think you may be onto something there." Xander turned in his seat. "Spike's main squeeze, Drusilla, is really kind of whacked out. You see, I was reading this comic where Batman ended up inside Joker's mind and..."  
  
"Brilliant, Xander." said Giles. The chalk snapped in his hand "Your obnoxious comic books might of some clue after all. It's as if we're inside a mentally unstable person's interpetation of Sunnydale High."  
  
"Not Billy again!" said Willow. "I don't want to face my deepest fears. Again. I got new ones. Bad ones. Plus, giant bees? Still want to know who was at fault for that. I blame Harmony"  
  
"No, not fears." replied Giles. "It's...it's more of a reshuffling of reality."  
  
"Playing cards?" said Cordelia as she put her feet up on the chair to her left.  
  
"Rubik's Cube." said Giles.  
  
"A what?" said Cordy.  
  
"Or maybe Johnathan." said Willow. "I saw him jump when Larry tossed a fake spider into his backpack."  
  
"It's a game, Cordelia. A square with multiple panels. You manipulate it so each side is one square."  
  
"And this is in reverse, right?" said Xander. "Sunnydale is a cube with all the demony colors on their right side, yet someone's shuffling around everything and everyone."  
  
"It's not a new phenemenon." said Giles. "Multiple instances abound where people have lost time, reported going back in time or found themselves far away from their original locations with no memory of how they got there."  
  
"Hold on!" said Cordy. "That's alien abductions! UFOs! Sunnydale may have vampires and wolfboys and cheerleader witches but it does not have UFOs. Space aliens do not exist."  
  
"Why not?" said Buffy. "Most other spookables exist."  
  
"Or Principal Snyder. He looks like a bee..."  
  
"I refuse to deal with aliens." Xander declared.  
  
"It's not aliens!" said Cordy. "Vampires are bad enough."  
  
"Yes, I am sure your emotional response will completely eliminate the possibillity." said Giles as he pushed his glasses up.   
  
Willow turned in her seat. "Cordy, nobody is saying it is a UFO. Just that it's time loss. And maybe what some people thought of as aliens really were demons."  
  
"So what's doing this and why?"  
  
Buffy stood up.   
  
"I know. Why at least."  
  
"Well, don't keep us in suspense, Buffy." said Cordy. "I want to know if I should bother paying off my credit cards. Or get a ray gun. Willow, do you know how to build one?"  
  
"Shut up. It's so obvious once you think about it." she said. "They're pulling apart Sunnydale. What's the big thing that makes Sunnydale so important?"  
  
"The mouth of Hell." said Oz. He put the keyboard to the side, having pulled up www.ufotales.com.  
  
"Of course!" said Giles. "They must want to open it!"  
  
"Again?" cried Xander. "Didn't we already do this? Like last week? And the week before that? And so on?"  
  
"No, no, that's too complicated." said Giles, as he put the chalk down. "There are many more easier ways to attempt to open the Hellmouth."   
  
"Oh, that's a relief." muttered Xander. "I'm never coming to school again."  
  
Giles sat on the edge of the desk. "Not to worry." he said. "I have several crystals I custom-ordered from Madagascar. They will warn of any of the known spells needed to pry into the Hellmouth."  
  
"Well, if they aren't going to open it, maybe they're gonna steal it!" said Cordy. "Some hairy, smelly loser is probably sitting in an ugly, stucco-roofed house on the wrong side of town and is preparing to suck the Hellmouth over to him and go all bathing in the icky evil Hell-energies. Probably because a girl dumped him. Or a guy. It's a modern world."  
  
"I think you may be onto something there." said Giles. "It makes the most sense."  
  
"Really?" Cordy beamed. "I figured it out this time? Coolness. I'm gonna save the world, I'm gonna save the world."  
  
"So what's the plan, G-Man" said Oz, standing up.   
  
"I don't know."  
  
"Not something we wanna hear, Giles." said Cordelia.  
  
"Despite reports to the contrary, I am not all-perfect." Giles began to scribble in his notebook again.  
  
"I got it." said Buffy. "He wants to bring the Hellmouth to him, well, we just get to the library and wait. Go for a Magic Hellmouth Ride."  
  
"Better idea that won't be so scary. Once again, geekiness saves the day." said Cordelia. "I'm not going to ride on the Hellmouth. Willow, can you do a detect magic spell thing?"  
  
"Well, yeah but with everything going coo-coo, I'm going to find it all over the place. And it's the Hellmouth. Magic is everywhere."  
  
"Yes, but what we're looking for is no magic. You see, I'm thinking that if Loser-Boy is really going to drag the Hellmouth all the way over to his Loser-Cave, he's going to leave a straight path of normallity from school to his place. He doesn't want the Hellmouth to be sucked into three years from now and blow up the entire city in one raging ball of Hellfire."  
  
"I don't get it." said Xander.  
  
"Stick with me, hairy boy." said Cordelia. She leaned forward. "We all saw in school how turning the wrong corner can make you go forward or backwards in time. Loser-Boy wants to drag the Hellmouth to him. Not lose it in the past or make it go kablooey due to a Trekkie-loser time warp and make everything explode."  
  
"Or maybe he does."  
  
"Good help there, Oz. Real good help." Cordelia leaned back and put her hand to her forehead. "Saving the day really takes it out of you. I need an apsrin."  
  
"Something's not right." said Oz. "If someone wants to drag the Hellmouth to him, why not just go to the library?"  
  
"Yeah." said Xander. "Why shoot off all this powerful magic? Just bust down the doors and enjoy the evil."  
  
"Maybe he can't come to to the library." said Buffy. "Maybe he's stuck where he is."  
  
"Many powerful demons are stuck in their lair." said Giles. "The Master was. Flonox demons have to live the basements of deconsecrated churches. An entire race of slime-producing, twelve-inch high Despair gnomes could not pass past the boundaries of the Roman catacombs. The slayer of 1889 killed them all. With a shovel. It was very impressive."  
  
"Maybe he's in a wheelchair." said Oz.  
  
"Okay, we get the picture." said Cordy, screwing up her face. "Loser-boy can't move out of his Loser-Cave and needs Hellmouth to become all powerful Loser-boy. Let's go already."  
  
"This has been a lot of guessing." said Oz, looking at nothing in paticular. "Couldn't he hire someone to take him to the school?"  
  
"Maybe he was suspended." said Buffy. "Will?"   
  
"I got it." she said. She began tapping on her computer. "List of all suspended students."   
  
"We've done more with worse. Or worse with less. Or...I give up." said Xander.  
  
"No go." said Willow. "Computer keeps telling me to jump off a cliff. We're going to have to go with Cordy's null-magic idea thing."  
  
Cordy beamed.  
  
"It's our best bet, guys." said Buffy as she stood up. "We see if there's a relative straight line of calmness heading away from the school. If there is, we follow it to the end and where Willow finds a bunch of evil magic, we'll find our guy. Hopefully. Then we kick him in the head until he plays nice. Willow? Balls in your court."  
  
Willow went to one of the back cabinets, shoved aside a couple reams of printer paper and picked up a small bag.  
  
"Emergencey magic kit." she said, grinning proudly. "Just in case of situations like this. Me and Ms. Calendar...cooked it up."  
  
"Willow," said Giles. "Under any other circumstances, I would vastly disaprove."  
  
--  
  
Willow jogged down the school's front steps. A soft green glow covered her hands. The rest of the gang followed closely behind. "Okay, when my hands stop glowing that means no magic."  
  
"What?" said Xander.  
  
"Green means hot." declared Oz. "No means cold. We like cold. Cold is good."   
  
"Dumb spells." muttered Xander. "Never user friendly."  
  
"It's a horrible burden." replied Oz.  
  
"Giles, are you really sure this magic is going to work?" said Cordelia. "Messing around with magic has caused all sorts of chaos."  
  
"Cordelia." said Giles, pushing up his glasses. "I am a trained Watcher. I do not 'mess about' with magics."  
  
She stared at him.  
  
"Okay, fine. There iss no garuntee it is going to work. We might all die horribly. But it is our only hope to get reality back to what it should be. Hopefully with less MTV."  
  
"Giles made a funny." said Oz.  
  
"Yes, don't scare him." said Willow. "He might not do it again."  
  
"It's nightime. Nobody really hangs out at nightime." mused Buffy. "Except some idiots." she muttered.  
  
"It would be bad enough explaining me hanging out with you weirdos without having to make something up about Willow's glowy hands. Willow, are you sure that's safe?" Cordelia asked.  
  
Giles rolled his eyes.  
  
"Well, no, not really. A monk did the same spell in 1907 and grew rabbit ears."  
  
"Hoppy the Monk." muttered Xander. "Don't grow rabbit ears, okay, Willow?"  
  
"I don't know." smiled Oz as the group turned left at the end of the walkway. "You'd look cute."  
  
"Um...yeah...and...the monk? He grew them out of his eyeballs. And that's no fun so thank goodness my hands just stopped glowing. We go this way. Saddle up and roll out!"  
  
"What did you just say?"   
  
"Sorry, Giles. Me and Oz had a war-movie marathon yesterday. There were Ju-Ju-Bees."  
  
"Fascinating."  
  
--  
  
The Scoobies stoood around the boarded front doors of Adeliene Movie's. Someone had scrawled in red paint (hopefully it was paint) 'Fourth Graders Make The Best Snacks' some months ago.  
  
"Gonna have to get that repainted." said Xander, scowling.  
  
"Have some paint in the van from helping Devon with his room." said Oz. "I'll help."   
  
The old theatre creaked as it settled. But it was just wood and boards doing the creaking this time. It had been the site of no less then three seperate vamp nests before Buffy left word in Willy's that it was to be left alone. That, and the skull of the ancient emotional predator Acathla. (It had appeared in Sunnydale to feed on the despair, and limbs, of recently divorced men).  
  
"We're curving, Willow." said Cordelia. "This place was waaay out of the direcion we'd been going in the last twenty minutes. I thought curving was bad."  
  
"No, we're going straight." replied Willow. "Reality is curving."  
  
"My head hurts." said Cordy. She pulled out a water bottle and an asprin and took two.  
  
"How about we tear it off then?" said Spike, stepping out from the shadows. "You've been a bad bunch of Scoobies and my new employer says..."  
  
SHUNK!  
  
"... HOLY CRAP THAT HURTS!"  
  
Giles had fired a crossbow bolt into his upper right pec.   
  
"You missed, librarian. What's the matter, reading too much dusty old crap?"  
  
Giles fired another, piercing straight through Spike's abdomen.  
  
Spike groaned and sank to one knee.  
  
"You poncy bastard! This hurts! Ah, bugger it. Kill me if you want. I don't even belong in this dimension. I was hired from the one where Willow was the Slayer. But this is a fun dimension. I mean Buffy is the slayer? Wait until I till Dru. She's gonna laugh until she spits up that four year old she just ate ARGH!"   
  
Spike vanished in a puff of dust. The arrows fell. Giles picked them and loaded the crossbow again.  
  
"Giles, he was going to tell us more of information stuff!" Willow declared.  
  
"No, he wasn't. Run." Giles pushed Xander and Cordelia ahead of him. "Faster!" he demanded. The group plunged into a brick alleyway.  
  
A tremendous bang stunned them. Willow and Oz fell and Cordy cried out in pain.  
  
A school bus stop sign clanged off the alley wall and flew away over Giles' head.  
  
"They threw a school bus at us?" cried Xander. "Holy freakin' hell!"  
  
"Nobody in it." said Buffy, peeking around the corner.  
  
"Let's go!" said Cordy. "It's gonna blow up!"  
  
"That is just movies." said Xander as he helped Oz and Willow up. "Calm yourself."  
  
---  
  
A vampire had driven a Geo Metro upside down through the children's section of the Sunnydale Public Library.  
  
The vamp, a former McDonalds employee and frequent pain in rear for the last few months, died screaming on the end of Xander's stake.  
  
"Aha!" he said.   
  
"Good work. Good work." replied Giles as he stepped in through the broken window. "Now come on, the trail leads clean through here."  
  
"Never been to this library." said Cordelia as Oz helped her over the glass. "I hope it's not all old and creepy like at school."  
  
"Thank you very much." said Giles.   
  
Buffy gave one last look around before following the rest inside.  
  
"We're headed for the lobby." said Willow. "Watch out for the book carts. They end up in unexpected spots all the time."  
  
"Fascinating." said Oz, Giles and Xander simultaneously.  
  
---  
  
The lobby looked as if a first grade classroom had exploded. Paper mache decorations and brightly printed signs were everywhere.   
  
A rectaunglar corkboard was set on the wall near the glass maze that was the entrance to the library proper. A small kitty-kat calendar, the same brand Willow got every year, hung desperately from one tack in the bottom right corner.   
  
"What's going on here?" Xander demanded of the kitty kat. It stared at him with big eyes.  
  
"What do you mean?" said Giles as the group drew closer.   
  
"The calendar!"  
  
Giles peered over his glasses.   
  
"I see nothing wrong with the calendar. Except for some poor feline in an absolutely hideous outfit."  
  
Xander looked up at them. "You don't see it?"  
  
His eyes shifted and he backed away.   
  
"Xander!" said Willow. "Tell us what's wrong already! You're wigging me out"  
  
"It ... it ... look at it already! What in God's name are those other days doing up there? Sun...day. Friday! Thursday! Mon...day? This reality thing has completely screwed up more thne we thought."  
  
Giles backed away. "Xander...what is it supposed to say?"  
  
"Wenesday! Every day is Wenesday. See, Wenesday, Wenesday, Wenesday, Wenesday, Wenesday, Wenesday and finally, WENESDAY." Xander's eyes went wide. "Who are you people? Ted-Robots?"  
  
Xander's arm darted and a stake was in his hands.  
  
"Xander!" Willow said, showing her hands. "We're your friends!"  
  
"Oh yeah? Then how come you think it's so normal to have days not named Wenesday?"   
  
Xander backed into the calendar itself. It gave up the ghost and fell, flapping closed on all the mysterious extra day names. The tack bounced merrily away, to be forever lost.  
  
Oz subtly shifted to the left as Buffy got closer. Xander, if that was who he was, wasn't going to be doing anything.  
  
"Xander." Willow said softly. Her eyes were wide and her mouth downturned. "Why do you think we're in the library?"  
  
"I'm not telling you anything! Now stop being my friends and turn into your icky demon selves so I can scream a lot and hopefully take one of you down with me."  
  
Giles stepped forward. "Xander, that's enough. We are here because something is dragging the Hellmouth the length of Sunnydale and it is tearing apart dimensions. You are obviously another Xander who got caught up in this. Are you familar with alternate dimensions?"  
  
"Quite possibly will be soon." he said. Then his eyes lowered. "Now that you mentioned it...A-Amy did tell us something along those lines when she was helping us defeat that winged vampire. She mentioned that there is a universe with no seafood. And no G.I.Joes. One where the Simpsons was never produced and something called 'Let's Punch Everyone' is the most popular show. And one where Cordelia became the Slayer."  
  
"I did?" she said. "Wow, was I good?"  
  
Xander smiled a little. "You threw Principal Snyder into the ocean and then you made Spike drink acid. But that was all we could figure out."  
  
"I think we're getting off track here." said Oz. "We should get Xander back. Real Xander. The whole Wenesday thing is probably weirding him out."   
  
"No Saturday morning cartoons would make him very sad." said Willow.  
  
"Um..." said Xander, lowering his stake. "We do have Wenesday morning cartoons. I watch them every Wenesday."  
  
"My head hurts." said Buffy.  
  
"Can I ask him about Saturday Night Live?" whispered Cordelia. "I wanna watch his eyes twitch again."  
  
"No." declared Buffy. "We need real Xander soonest."  
  
"I remember something about things being returned to their proper places. Anyone got a scissors? The spell requires hair from the ones who care about the object the most."  
  
---  
  
"Well, now we have a suspect. And research materials." said Giles.  
  
"And big, smelly, dusty books!" said Buffy.  
  
"It's a given." replied Oz.  
  
"How come I'm the one carrying them all?"  
  
"You said it yourself, Buffy." stated Cordelia. "Big. Big is heavy. You have the Slayer strength. Thus you get to carry the books."  
  
Xander, Oz and Willow reached into the big white box and picked out a book to lug.  
  
"Be all emotional and huggy." said Cordelia. "I'm not touching those things unless I have to. Last time I did, it was made of human skin and tried to eat my hands."  
  
Giles looked back. "Cordelia, that was in the lair of the Squealing Demon Prince. His linen towels would have tried to eat your hands."  
  
"It's the principle of the thing."  
  
"Of course. How awful of me to forget."  
  
"Don't forget." said Oz as he tucked the book under his armpit. He would later discover his pit hairs would be pink every thirty five weeks for one hour. "We have a theory."  
  
"What theory would that be?" said Giles, stepping nimbly down a curb and into the parking lot of a Big Belly Burger.   
  
"Don't rush me." Oz replied calmly. He tapped his head. "It's in here somewhere.".   
  
---  
  
The group took up a corner booth. Fries and hamburgers were being unwrapped and dusty books cracked. Well away from the fries and burgers.  
  
A half hour passed. Giles' stares kept ketchup drips and soda drops well away from the books.  
  
"Anyone starting to notice a them?" Oz said, as he held up a book.  
  
"Gross and icky?" suggested Cordelia.  
  
"True, but no. Willow, do you get it yet?"  
  
"I think I do. These are copies of some pretty intense magical texts. We don't have these copies ..."  
  
"But I did plan to order them next week." Giles said, his eyes brightening.  
  
"And I have read about them." said Willow. "In some index books Giles keeps in his office. Sort of a catalogue for magicy books. And these ones are really supposed to have details about the Hellmouth. Many chapters."  
  
"But they don't." said Buffy.  
  
"Exactly!" said Xander. "I got them from another dimension. Another dimension that...doesn't mention the Hellmouth!"  
  
"By god." said Giles. "This King of Pain the other Xander referenced must be trying to not drag the Hellmouth across town, but drag it into another dimension all together!"  
  
"A dimension without a hellmouth, suddenly being exposed to one." Willow said. "The results would be...I don't know. But not good. So not good."  
  
"We get rid of our Hellmouth and another dimension with a Slayer gets one. I don't understand." said Cordelia. "I mean bad for them but good for us. Right?"  
  
"No, not really." said Willow. "We just have to deal with a Hellmouth. If this King of Pain steals it we'll have to deal with a Hellgapinghole that's about ... Giles?"  
  
"Works out to about...oh, thirty miles wide. At minimum. Impossible to seal."  
  
"Okay, bad for us then. Shouldn't we get back to tracking down King-man?"  
  
---  
  
Just then the building exploded.  
  
---  
  
"What hit me?" Xander moaned. He raised his head from the table. The ... unexploded table.  
  
"We didn't die." said Cordelia.  
  
"Always a plus." remarked Oz.  
  
Giles' back was on fire.   
  
Buffy yelped and poured her soda on it. The cold woke him up.  
  
"Oh my."  
  
"You were on fire." Buffy said. "I put it out."  
  
"Deeply appreciated."  
  
"Does it hurt?" Willow said, craning her head.  
  
Giles quickly pulled off his jacket. He held it up. "Seems to have scorched only just the outside. Remarkable tweed. Must thank the tailor."  
  
"What happened?" said Xander. "Not that I'm complaining but first we were exploding then we were not."  
  
"Um." said Willow.  
  
Xander turned his head. "Yeah, Willow?"  
  
"I didn't say anything."  
  
"You said 'um'."  
  
"No I didn't."  
  
"GUYS!" Buffy cried.   
  
All heads turned to her. "Look!" Buffy pointed towards the middle of the restaurant. Another Buffy stood there, in a dark green sweater and loose black pants. She held her hands behind her and bounced on her toes.   
  
"Um, hi." she said. She gave a little wave. "I saved you. I'm, as you can tell, Buffy Summers. I'm a witch."  
  
---  
  
Xander, Willow and Buffy sat around Buffy's kitchen table. Okay, well, a different table. Buffy's own table was not flourescent green.   
  
"Can you believe it?" Willow whispered. "Cordy here is a guy! And he's dating Oz!"  
  
"Those crazy guys." Xander smiled. "They're so in love."  
  
"You softy." said Buffy. "You're just jealous."  
  
"And you're a witch! Wait, that's not a comeback."  
  
"And I'm the Slayer!" Willow beamed. "Me. With the slayage. And the decapitations."  
  
"And my mom married Giles! At least she knows the sitch with the whole monster things."  
  
"I wonder if Snyder is a woman." mused Xander.  
  
"Oh, no." said Other-Willow. "Snyder got eaten by hyeanas. Flutie is the principal now."  
  
"You scared me!" said Willow. "Silent."  
  
"Sorry. Whole Slayer-thing. I'm stealthy." Both girls beamed at each other.  
  
"Where did Cordelia and Oz go to?"  
  
"Our Mrs. Summers corraled him to fix the computer upstairs. Your Cordy saw our Cordy and had to lay down. She's upstairs on Buffy's bed. The rest of us are downstairs, getting all suited up. We think the King of Pain is hiding out in an old arcade/batting room area on the north end of town. Our Xander remembers a friend from the comic book place helping out with building it. He said most of the construction material came from the Ivory Coast and that's a pretty big focal point for magics in Africa."  
  
"The Funatorium?" said Buffy.  
  
"Yeah, that's it." said Other-Willow. "You've been there?"  
  
"Abandoned six years ago after two people killed themselves in seperate sections of the building. Cleared out three vamp nests in two years. After the third batch I 'accidentally' punched out a few support beams and ran out and watched the whole place collapse."  
  
"Odd." said Other-Willow. "Usually vamps don't go back to nests I clear out. Maybe it's the signs I leave. Big signs. With diagrams."  
  
"Must be it then." said Willow. "The 'essence' of the building must act like a mini-Hellmouth. Attracting the evil."  
  
"Hellmouth." said Other-Willow. "You really must tell us all about it. We should know more if the King Of Pain is trying to bring it to this dimension."  
  
"I wonder what the real name is?" mused Xander. "Narholytep? Chthullu?"  
  
"Xander, don't say the bad names out loud." Willow scowled.  
  
"Even those? Aren't they fictional?"  
  
"Not even."  
  
Ljk468 


End file.
